The potency of so-called ‘fake news’ can be diminished by exposing the public to an “inoculation” of a misinformation warning, according to a study led by researchers at the University of Cambridge.

Dr Sander van der Linden, a Fellow of Churchill College and director of Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab, worked with researchers in the US from Yale and George Mason Universities to study the influence of misinformation on well-known facts.

The study is modelled on vaccinations, which work by exposing the body to a controlled version of a disease in order to increase the body’s resistance to it. Using similar logic, social psychologists tested the idea of “inoculating” the public against misinformation.

The experiment compared the reactions of over 2,000 US residents when presented with two claims about climate change; one well-known fact about scientific consensus on the issue, and the false assertion that scientists could not agree. They were then asked to evaluate for themselves the level of scientific consensus on climate change. Participants were asked to evaluate the level of scientific consensus on climate change both before and after the experiment. These figures were then compared in order to assess the effect the claims had had on participants’ opinions. 

When the two were presented consecutively, the myth cancelled out the effects of the accurate information, leaving the participants’ minds unchanged. However, when a ‘vaccine’- a warning about the misinformation tactics used by some activist groups- was given before the contradictory claims, the erroneous claim did not neutralise the effect of the fact: participants still made evaluations that were closer to the truth.

Although this study focused on the specific effects of ‘fake news’, Dr van der Linden told Varsity: “The study generally speaks to elements about human cognition and the way in which people attend to information, in terms of its uses.”

“The theory of attitudinal inoculation is a general tool that can also be useful when it comes to things like interpersonal persuasion.”

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Despite  ‘fake news’ emerging only recently as a political buzzword, Dr van der Linden considers it important to remember that “misinformation, propaganda and inaccurate news have always been present on the internet and in the popular press.”

The ‘fake news’ discourse, however, Dr van der Linden considers  to be more insidious, because of the “unprecedented spread and increase of this phenomenon and people’s willingness to buy into it.” The research team pointed out that this technique has been used by fossil fuel and tobacco companies to spread doubt and ultimately undermine scientifically reputable facts in the public consciousness.

Dr van der Linden believes the virility of fake news will slow down. However, he says: “It is a very serious problem. Primarily because people do base their beliefs,  feelings and even the decisions on the type of news that they receive.”

“Collectively, these decisions can undermine the democratic process, for example when we think of Brexit or the Trump election.

“When people start buying into falsehoods without questioning their validity, scary things can happen. Indeed, we’ve been there once before, it was called ‘World War II.’”